


Love Trumps Hate

by buckyjerkbarnes



Series: Steve Rogers is Tired of this Malarkey [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American Politics, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Politics, Social Justice, actually no, and it feels like it's been centuries, and we cannot have that, author is salty 2kforever, bucky doesn't mind listening, darth orange has been in office for exactly a month, for trump's cabinet picks and policies???, i'm too petty for that, is it 2020 yet???, is the moment trump wins, is this me using steve's voice, never stop fighting, real talk, real time with steve rogers, steve has a lot of things to say, the moment we stop fighting to be heard, the thought of another election rn is so exhausting, to make a ranty psa about my distaste, when you're living on your knees you rise up, ya damn skippy, you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9831866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: "I swear to God, I have aged, Buck. It's been a month. A month. I crashed that plane, was frozen, fought aliens, brought SHIELD to its knees, the whole nine, and during that time I didn't get a single wrinkle or gray hair. Donald Dipshit takes office for thirty days and I wake seeing silver."[Also known as A Series of Alternative Facts, but I felt Love Trumps Hate was much more uplifting.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who lives in the ass-end of conservative nowhere where my neighbors and family all voted for Tr*mp, I can sympathize with anyone who is extremely tired of seeing his face EVERYWHERE. Only three years and eleven months to go... hahaha fuck. Enjoy???

_2017_

_*_

"I swear to God, I have aged, Buck. It's been a month.  _A month_. I crashed that plane, was frozen, fought aliens, brought SHIELD to its knees, the whole nine, and during that time I didn't get a single wrinkle or gray hair. Donald Dipshit takes office for thirty days and I wake seeing silver. What the  _fuck_." 

Bucky couldn't even muster up a laugh, because he was held captive by a Nazi organization, brainwashed, made to perform assassinations for seventy years and had never aged. Through the exhausting series of orders the forty-fifth president had passed, he felt like he'd accumulated a century's worth of weight on his shoulders. 

"Yanno what pisses me off?" Steve asked him, the pair of them laying across their bed, curled into each other's sides. They'd not moved since dinner, their plates stacked haphazardly on the bedside table. The heater was turned on low as it had been a mild afternoon.

"It's a long list," Bucky shot back, smoothing a kiss across Steve's hairline. He loved this man; he was always struck dumb with it, didn't think he'd ever be able to shake of the warm feeling of it.  "Might want to get started."

He didn't have to look at him to know that Steve rolled his eyes, hard enough to turn the tides. "So much has happened lately that I've had to make a separate list, babe. It's called  _Bullshit the "President'—_ " and Bucky could literally hear the air quotes in Steve's voice—, " _Does_. Like, have you seen those photos of him after he signs an executive order? He fucking holds them up surrounded by his old white men cronies like he's showing off a crayon drawing to be hung up on the White House fridge. And his cabinet appointments!

"Betsy DeVos has never even been in a public school, never sent any of her children to public school, never taught or held a school board position at a public school and yet she was made head of the Department of Education. This is an air head who said there should be guns allowed in schools in case of potential grizzly bear attacks! She'll probably have kids adding two and two to get five like in that George Orwell book, I swear to fuck. And Scott Pruitt? That schmuck has filed so many lawsuits against the EPA the last few years it's not even funny. But then the raging orange douche-canoe went and appointed him Head of the same organization he so clearly hates! And Jeff Sessions! He was called "too racist to be a federal judge" back in the eighties. In the  _eighties._  Oh yeah, because the totally logical thing to do is make him Attorney General. Totally. That calculates out correctly." 

"Looks like DeVos's mathematical reform programs are kicking in already," Bucky murmured, quiet enough not to properly interrupt Steve, but with enough volume that he could be heard clearly in-case Steve needed to pause for breath. This is something that's been a necessity as of late, these instances of letting Steve seethe without pause because otherwise, he'd be on Twitter literally every waking moment saying what he felt needed to be said. 

(It was not to say that this, also, didn't occur. There had been no more direct tagging of Steve in President Trump's tweets, not after the Great Rant of December '16. Tony was working on arranging a deal with Pearson textbooks to have a full page overview of the event, complete with graphs, screen-caps, and unflattering photos of Trump. Bucky said he'd throw in his own dime if there was a subsection about Melissa McCarthy's SNL skit impersonating Sean Spicer.) 

Steve huffed a laugh that probably wasn't supposed to be a noise of amusement but turned out to be one anyway. "At least Andy Puzder got shot down as Secretary of Labor. The guy makes more a day than his lowest paid workers make in a year and he has the  _gall_ to be against raising minimum wage.  _Christ_." 

"Tell me how you feel about the whole bit with the liberal media being "fake news". It's been a few days since you've let that out." 

He actually heard Steve take a sharp breath, like he was gathering up all the oxygen in his lungs to properly burst out with a response. Bucky curled his arm tighter around Steve's trim waist, pressing his nose to Steve's temple in a way he knew set Steve at ease even if his blood pressure was somewhere near the Hubble Telescope. 

"See, he's being such a child— the media is literally a part of the constitution, a crucial part for that matter. The media is supposed to keep track of the happenings in Washington so the little guy has some sort of an idea about what the big boys and girls in suits slash pant-suits are getting up to. Were they hard on him? God damn right they were and with good reason to be. He's a giant ass-hat with a history of sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, and racist remarks and the media had every right to call him on that. They have their faults. I'll admit that. Back in our day the press used to thoroughly investigate a story before throwing it in the papers, but not anyone with a computer or smart phone can send out a Tweet or put up a blog post that somehow will end up on Facebook being spread around as an actual story. Is their fake news? Sure. Remember that story Reddit put up about you and I a few weeks ago saying that you'd moved out of the Tower and were seen sucking face with Thor?" 

"I do," Bucky confirmed. "I also clearly recall you posting a photo of us kissing and flipping off the camera about twelve seconds after you flicked through the attached images in the article." 

"Because  _someone_ has to set the record straight." 

"Heh.  _Straight._  You sure you're the one for that job?" 

Steve lifted his head briefly from Bucky's bicep, long enough to kiss Bucky with a great deal of pelvic-pressing and tongue-in-mouth action before resuming his position. He kept talking, an edge of smugness in his voice at the samba Bucky's heart was pounding out. "Fuckin' Kelly-Anne Conway. I wish that woman would have never come on as Trump's campaign manager. I hope she looks back at her life right before she passes away and she is struck with just how badly she fucked up America. You saw the comparison photos of the Inauguration festivities on the Washington Mall! Taken at the same time in both photos! Obama's panel was clearly filled with people.  _Clearly_. And yet she and Sean "I've Never Done a Press Briefing Ever" Spicer tried to say that there were close to half a million people there?" 

"Trump changed it to one point five million people didn't he?" 

"Yes! After they tried to argue that there was a low turnout because people were working. How could they be working if you spent half the campaign complaining about how there are no jobs in America, hmm? That and the fact that they said people didn't show because it was pouring rain. Yeah, sure, there was a light drizzle, but if you really wanted to see him take the oath of office, you would have shrugged on a poncho and dealt with it. 

"That's one of the first things that countries under fascist dictators do when they get into power. They denounce the credibility of the media. Hitler had a whole branch dedicated to it and Putin managed to dismantle the free press within a year coming to power in Russia. He's trying to say that good, well-qualified news branches are false. Seriously. Has he ever listened to half the shit that comes out of the anchors on Fox New's mouths? His old age must be setting in or he's got chronic selective hearing. 

"And then Conway whipped out that whole statement after Andersen Cooper called her on her bullshit about how the president was giving "alternative facts". You do not say that! I mean sweet Christ is she reading straight from a Dictator 101 pamphlet and just so happened to forget she was on live television while doing so? She tried to say that there was a Bowling Green Massacre where all that had happened was two Iraqi men had tried to send weapons to members of al Qaeda in Iraq, but they didn't even succeed. They were arrested before they could carry through with the plan. And then Spicer tried to say there was a horrible terrorist attack in Atlanta, but when someone called him out on that he denied having said Atlanta and claimed he meant  _Orlando._ In what fucking tongue do Atlanta and Orlando even sound remotely the same? The Pulse shooting was terrible— it just shows what kind of character he's got if he can so easily forget it ever happening and confuse it with a city in a completely different area. And just last night! Trump tried to say there was a terrorist attack in Sweden and, shockingly enough, there wasn't anything of the sort. Nothing. No dice. 

"The fact that he tried to use the shooting up of a mosque in Quebec as a justification for his Muslim Ban... The guy who shot those people wasn't Arabic or even a part of the Islamic faith. He was a far-right white guy who  _supports_ Trump and everything that Trump does. They shut up about that point real quick, though, once that little detail came out. I know you remember back in thirty-nine when the government rejected the entry of German Jews went out. I talked to a couple of historians a few weeks back who said that FDR didn't know how bad the conditions would become, but we let it happen. Of all the seven regions that Trump tried to put a ban on entering the US for, absolutely none of them have ever spit out a terrorist that's done harm to an American citizen. Not one. They're being made to live in a war zone only to try and gain citizenship to help their families, their children and..." 

Steve's voice puttered off. Bucky could feel him swallow hard and he couldn't help but tip Steve's chin up to kiss him, far more gently than their previous heated press of mouths. It was a  _I'm here_ and  _I won't let you go_ and  _as long as we're together, nothing can harm us_  sort of kiss, one that Steve keened into, arching his neck to get closer. "We turned away, Anne Frank, did you know? When there was a proposal for twenty thousand Jewish children to gain sanctuary here, we turned them away like a bad habit. Everyone says  _never again_ , that we can't allow such tragedy and genocide to occur and yet that's the path we're moving towards. The Anne Frank of today is a little Syrian girl struggling to be heard above all the noise and I'm so fucking scared we won't get to her until it's too late.

"Not to mention the mistreatment of our Native peoples. They managed to get that slim victory at Standing Rock a few months back, but Trump's signed an order to try and get the construction of the pipeline back on track. We've taken so much from them, pushed them off their land, placed them in specific regions that we didn't want so we decided to give to them only to go and say, well yanno how I did that nice thing for you about a hundred years ago? Yeah, I'm taking it back and now I'm going to drill into your sacred region. I know Banner has been on site since back in October, before things even got too terrible, and he's on every social media platform there is and one day, he's going to Hulk out and just  _lose it_. I wouldn't even blame him. I'd pick up the shield and help out, if I'm honest. Fuck, Buck, I'm scared to turn on the news half the time, but I know if I don't, I'll be just as bad as the uneducated masses who put Trump in power to begin with.

"And... And I hate to talk bad about a lady, but Mrs. Trump staying in Trump Tower is fucking ridiculous. I think it's fair to say she wanted the position of First Lady, but didn't want any of the work that came with it. Sure, she's shown up to a couple of diplomatic lunches between Trump and X foreign leader of the day, but otherwise it's up to the tax payers of New York to fund the security needed to protect her. It's a million dollars a day for that protect, did you know? That's three-hundred and sixty-five million dollars a year, three-hundred sixty-six on a leap year. So, if he's not impeached, that'll be well over a billion dollars over the course of four years and Trump had the nerve to call the public's treatment of her unfair? When did a First Lady  _not_ move into the White House? Because I Googled and you know what Google told me?" 

"It's never happened before," Bucky said, unable to help a little smile. 

"It's  _never_ happened before, damn it! That's right! I respect her choice to be a mother first, of course I do, Buck, how couldn't I with a Ma like mine? Fred Barnes would kick my ass from beyond the grave if I thought otherwise, but  _come on_. " 

Bucky pressed a little more firmly on Steve's scalp, adding a bit of nail on the upstroke, smoothing tenderly on the down. "I mean can you blame her for wanting to put two-hundred miles between her and that decaying orange peal?" 

"No," Steve grumbled, still as bitter as he's been since his stream of consciousness began. Somewhere, across the burrows in Bed Stuy, he could faintly hear Natasha declaring Steve was being as  _salty as the Dead Sea, Barnes, good luck winding him down for the night_. He never let his hand falter in its soothing caressing motions. "But she made the choice to marry him, to stand by him, and I have to take that into consideration, too. And I do hate how the press tries to drag their son into this. Seriously. He's just a few years younger than Spider-Man... He's just a kid— they can go after his other children, sure, because they are in their late twenties, early thirties and they've done some stuff that calls for harsh judgment. But leave the youngest boy and the grandchildren out of it. People have withdrawn their own children from the private school the Trump grand-kids go to out of spite." 

He hummed softly in the back of his throat. "That ain't fair to the kids. On either side of the tracks. Education is so important, especially in this constant shit-fest. Think about how happy the Women's Marches made you." They'd gone out to the one in their city, snapped photos with ladies wearing those pink, knitted vagina hats, asked for photos of their own when a protest sign or eight happened to strike the right chord. (Bucky's personal favorite had to be the one with Princess Leia and the caption A WOMAN'S PLACE IS WITH THE RESISTANCE.) He and Steve both were asked to make speeches to the crowds and Bucky tried to keep his lines to the point, encouraging in the face of a mass of despair, but poignant, carrying a couple of sound bites replayed across conservative and liberal broadcasts alike. 

Steve held no such restrictions, much to no one's surprise. There was an active betting pool among the Avengers of when the final straw would break the camel's back and Steve would pull on the Captain America uniform to march down to Washington to punch Trump in the face. 

"There were literally protests on every continent, Buck. Well, granted the one on Antarctica wasn't  _on_ the continent. It was on a boat, like, right off the coast, but I think it's all about principle, here. Trump is so disliked, people everywhere spoke out against him and that's just the cherry on top. Actually, no. The cherry on top is the fact that the Women's March was the day after his Inauguration and it happened to be the biggest peaceful gathering of people in DC  _ever_ , bigger than Dr. King's March on Washington, even. If that's not the biggest slap to his poorly spray-tanned face, I don't know what is. I only wish I could see him struggle to bend down and pick his dollar store toupee off the ground." 

The image Steve's words drew out of Bucky's subconscious triggered a snort out of him. "Please. As though he'd actually pick it off the ground himself." 

The width of Steve’s shoulders went tight, as did the line of his back, as though a particularly cold thought had cut right through his solar plexus. "If they try to overturn  _Roe v. Wade,_ Buck... Do you know how many girls my Ma had to help around the neighborhood because they tried to have clothes hanger abortions? I could always tell when she handled one of those cases because she always looked so tired. Before you came back, I used to help girls safely go into Planned Parenthood buildings just so they'd not be attacked or otherwise harassed." 

He closed his eyes and for a moment it was 1941 and Steve was ranting about men laying down their lives across the ocean while the rest of the world stood idly by and watched, uncaring because the turmoil did not directly affect them. Bucky moved his hands from where they'd been sketching out steady lines over the bumps of Steve's spine, curling his right hand in the hair at Steve's nape, the other pressed between his shoulder blades. He massaged his flesh fingers against Steve's scalp, felt Steve go a bit boneless against him. 

"Some of our oldest allies are laughing at us. We've infuriated Mexico to the point President Peña Nieto has canceled any sort of official diplomatic meeting. Even Theresa May is shaking her head at us with Parliament debating whether or not Trump will ever be invited formally over... I don't even want to think about what Trudeau has to say about us." 

Bucky gave his hair a little tug, huffing on a laugh. "Trudeau is far too polite to publicly call Trump out on his nonsense. He did put up that post right after the Muslim Ban saying that Canada would always welcome refugees despite what their religious beliefs happen to be. I think that's about as sharp of a burn you'll get."

"Thank god those judges deemed the ban unconstitutional," Steve said, shaking his head and burring his face further into Bucky's chest all at once. "And Obama is off having a tropical vacation just having the time of his life water skiing and boating. I don't even blame him. The man lost twenty years of stress in his face just walking to that helicopter leaving DC. He fought hard; he and Michelle both deserve a break. And people are giving Hillary shit because she's not on the front lines. She held her campaign promise of turning up to the Inauguration ceremony (even though she looked as though she wanted to be physically anywhere else). She's gave it her all and having that victory snatched out of her hands by a cry-baby seventy-year old who's never heard of god damn _checks and fucking balances_ is... It's baffling. Buck, I've been trying to wrap my head around that for almost three months and it's still not computing." 

He pressed a smile into the side of Steve's head, pushing off with a lingering kiss. "You done?" 

"Until our Predator in-Chief does something else to make headlines," Steve grumbled, allowing Bucky to tug him in so they were aligned like closed parenthesis. They folded their fingers together, palms warm and aligned. "Don't worry. I guarantee we'll wake up with a CNN notification that'll scare the shit out of us both..." 

*

At the end of the night, once Bucky managed to convince Steve to accompany him to the kitchen for something to eat so neither of their stomachs would wake them cramping out of hunger a few hours down the line, he found himself faltering as he pushed their door shut behind them. Steve’s shield leaned on the wall directly across from him, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the evening glow of the buildings surrounding Avengers Tower. He found himself moving closer to the shield, the white star serving as the iris of the unblinking eye of the very symbol he both loathed and loved.

Bucky squatted down, phone in hand, and snapped a photo of the slightly angled shield, launching posting jointly to Instagram and Twitter with the caption:  **So who the hell is with me? #LoveTrumpsHate**  to both.

Not for the first time, by morning, both social media platforms went nuts. A majority of the comments and replies were simply the emoji of the man or woman raising their hands, with many being some variant of  **When do we start?**

Bucky smiled sleepily, tucking his phone back under the pillow, and pulled Steve closer into the curve of his side for another couple hours of solid shut-eye.

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll I'm so tired of this malarkey. Tell me how you're feeling, too, in the comments. Biased is the POV, true are the facts. Don't let Tr*mp's bashing of the media sway you. Stay woke, my friends.


End file.
